A barrister and family sought to extend the raised and lower ground floor living area of this grade II listed house in Westminster. A small original closet wing extension housed a narrow kitchen reached down one step from the raised ground stair hall. A large original kitchen would have been located downstairs, served from the street front light-well via stairs. Upstairs downstairs arrangements would have been adjusted in the period between WWI and WWII and the pinched small kitchen was the result.

Planning permission was gained at appeal for a contemporary extension to house a new family kitchen and dining room and new study space underneath at lower ground level. The new spaces wrap around a small courtyard. This allows convenient connection to a library, in turn connected to the front raised ground floor living room, and ancillary rooms at lower level.

The new arrangements both retain and build on the character of the house, inspired by the celebrated wrap around space of the Sir John Soane house at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a model for this scheme. A local surveyor implemented the project after planning permission.